Sonatype has released a new chapter in the Maven Book on POM Optimization. Covers dependencyManagement, pluginManagement, and the Dependency Plugin.

The optimization chapter is a collaboration between Brian Fox and myself. Brian wrote the original content and I revised and extended his material. This chapter is at the end of Part I of Maven: The Definitive Guide, and it optimizes the POMs from the large multi-module, enterprise example at the end of Part I. Read this alpha release, and please, let us know what you think. The address for book feedback is book@sonatype.com.

Here's an excerpt. (Or, here's a run on sentence that won't survive the copy editing process.)

"Optimizing a Multi-Module project’s POM is best done in several passes as there are many areas to focus on. In general, we are looking for repetition within a POM and across the sibling POMs. When you are starting out, or when a project is still evolving very rapidly, it is acceptable to duplicate some dependencies and plugin configurations here and there, but as the project matures and as the number of modules increases, you will want to take some time to refactor common dependencies and configuration points. Making your POMs more efficient will go a long way to helping you manage complexity as your project grows. Whenever there is duplication of some piece of information, there is usually a better way."

You can read more here.

Responses[2]

Posted by Tim O'Brien on May 11, 2008 3:13:00 PM CDT #